To Bewitch a Devil

156 Good girl

But Neera was human, and there was no denying that humans didn’t even live up to a pinch of demons’ lifespan. The thought enclosed around Jasmine, and albeit it was a dark one, it was the truth she knew to give her some modicum of comfort. Neera was going to grow old, but she was not. Neera was going to die, and she, not even in a thousand years to come.

But if that is how she would get her turn to be Queen of the land and someday of Zavian’s heart, she would wait. She would let them both have all the time in the world, for she believed, sooner or later, she will be just fine.

...

Just outside the borders of Darstun, ending where the river flowed and joined with the Grenoa sea, was a small village housed around thick lush forest and behind two brown mountains. The usual quietness was pierced by the howling of the cold wind that brushed the air with water from the river. The people hurried into their houses in preparation for a storm to come- shutting windows, packing in sun-dried fishes, and parents calling in children that squealed as the wind tousled their hairs.

A farmer stepped out to pack the laundry on the line behind his house, his pregnant wife’s feet too swollen to even help out. He tugged and pulled at the clothes, and when he whipped the woolen jacket off the line, he saw a little girl emerge from the forest behind.

She was covered from head to toe in mud, her left foot dragging behind her like a dead log and yet she didn’t limp. Matted hair covered her face, and the farmer looked around, hoping to find the parent still out looking for their kid.

“Hey, hurry and get inside!” The farmer called. “Your mother must be worried sick.”

But the girl stopped walking and stood still. Concerned, and impatient, the farmer stuffed a rough pile of clothes on his arm and approached the little girl. From the mass of her hair covering her head, he heard a whimpering sound come from her.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me know who your mother is and I would take you there, okay?”

.....

The whimpering only increased in frequency, the unnatural sound piercing his ears. Startled, the farmer stared helplessly at the child. He looked up when two drops of water wet his face, and the sky whipped out streaks of lightning.

“Where is your mother?” The farmer asked louder. He heard someone call to him, his wife. She stood there, hand supporting her pregnant belly, and he waved her back.

“Go inside! Stop being on your feet!” He said. But when he turned to look at the girl, all the blood drained from his body.

“No”, he whispered, his body falling as he backed away a few inches. “What are you?”

Within that split second, he had turned back to look at his wife. The hair had parted and he saw a face sucked out of the tiniest signs of life. Her eyes were hollow, two deep wells that sunk in her face, and her mouth was stretched into the thinnest of lines, like two lines of thread that opened and gave out a siren call.

And then she was floating.

The farmer’s eyes whipped to his wife, her scream reverberating through the rain that thundered from the heavens.

“Go inside!” The farmer yelled at her, scampering to his feet on the slippery wet ground. “Go! Run!”

But he felt it, the sharp pain that drew from his chest and spread all the way across his body, and shards of screams filled the air. Something was being pulled out of him, and he saw his wife, knees on the ground, her mouth letting out a scream before she went silent and slumped onto the earth.

What was once his panic for his wife and screaming was replaced by nothingness and emptiness that rang throughout his body. Soon, his world vanished before his eyes, and he was standing to his feet, moving. A vessel of a body emptied of its essence.

People trudged out of their houses, their movement catatonic, eyes the same wells of void on their faces, and they all headed to where the farmer stood. The little girl floated down, and behind her, a hand landed on her shoulder.

“Good girl”, a figure from behind the girl spoke as it walked towards her.

….

Before her, Jasmine listened to the lament of the young mother holding her sick son in a bundle of clothes. Her husband had gone on one of his drunken sprees and had left her and the new baby alone. She was a pitiful sight, face sagged from weariness and looking older than her twenty-one years of age, and the baby’s skin was marred with pus-filled swellings.

“We would have our physician tend to the baby himself,” Jasmine consoled the woman. “And for now, I would ensure proper arrangements are made to have food sent over to you.”

The woman fell to her knees, startling the already asleep baby awake. “Thank you, thank you, your Majesty.”

“And for your husband, tell him he would be needed to appear before the Queen once he is sober enough to find his way home,” Jasmine said.

“Please, don’t punish him,” the woman pleaded. “He is just having a hard time. He wasn’t like this before.”

Jasmine gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I will only ensure he doesn’t leave you high and dry again. A man should uphold his responsibilities as a husband and a father.”

The woman thanked her again, and she exited the hall with a guard, the shrill cries of the baby echoing in the throne room from the pain of the sickness. Jasmine’s heart tore. Humans had it worse when it came to illnesses, and the fragility of their bodies to the adversity of weather or any bad circumstances was something she needed to discuss with Zavian to put more solid measures in place.